Will's avatar
Will Webberley
📣 Mastodon 🖼️ Pixelfed 💻 Git

Posts and notes

Opinion

(17 items)

Ramblings on Hypermedia APIs for Pure Web Applications 7 September 2024

Many moons ago I would write web applications using technologies like PHP or Python to directly serve web content – often using templating engines to more easily handle data display. These apps would thus ship server-side rendered plain HTML, along with a mix of browser-native forms and AJAX … Read more (8 minute read)
technology opinion javascript

Making Tax Digital and Plain-Text Accounting 30 July 2022

HMRC’s Making Tax Digital Making Tax Digital (MTD) is part of the UK Government’s plan for modernising the tax system for both businesses and individuals. For years, HMRC (the Government’s tax department) has had an online tax system that is infamously complicated and slow to use … Read more (3 minute read)
opinion technology finance

The future of the decentralised web: thoughts on web0 and web3 21 January 2022

I recently signed the web0 manifesto, which embodies many of the values I consider to be important when it comes to technology - and the web in particular. web0 is the decentralised web… web0 is web3 without all the corporate right-libertarian Silicon Valley bullshit. – The web0 … Read more (8 minute read)
technology opinion

On websites and creativity 13 November 2021

I’ve recently been reminiscing about the “old” days of the web. They felt much more like expressions of personality and creativity. These days, most people have social media accounts on mainstream services that act as their sole representation of themselves online. Whilst the … Read more (2 minute read)
100daystooffload technology opinion

This Week in Tech (TWiT) 17 October 2021

Another podcast I frequently listen to likely needs no introduction of its own. The This Week in Tech (or just “TWiT”) network’s flagship podcast - also called TWiT - must be one of the longest-running tech podcasts. The podcast series started back in 2005. It runs weekly, with … Read more (1 minute read)
100daystooffload technology podcast opinion

Accessibility is for everyone 22 September 2021

For many developers, the notion of adding accessibility features - such as image alt text attributes to web page images and integrations with host usability enhancements, such as screen-zoom and text-to-speech - might feel like a chore. Especially for those still in the startup or “do things … Read more (3 minute read)
100daystooffload technology opinion

RSS: include your entire posts in your feeds! 12 June 2021

Recently I’ve noticed that some of the RSS feeds I subscribe to have become more and more restrictive. A post might contain just a title, or perhaps a short snippet or introductory paragraph, with the expectation that I then proceed to follow the link to visit the website itself in order to … Read more (5 minute read)
100daystooffload technology opinion

From Apple Mail to Spark to Thunderbird 4 April 2021

Like many people, I own and manage multiple email accounts - for example, some are for work, for home, or for specific projects. I used to be a strong user of solely web-based email clients (such as Gmail or Fastmail’s web apps) for each of my accounts. However the number of tabs I needed to … Read more (7 minute read)
100daystooffload technology opinion

The simplicity and flexibility of HTTP for APIs 31 March 2021

Simple and RESTful HTTP APIs The HTTP standard is an expressive system for network-based computer-computer interaction. It’s a relatively old standard - it started life as HTTP/1.0 in 1996 and the HTTP/1.1 standard was formally specified in 1999. HTTP/2 (2015) introduced efficiencies around … Read more (6 minute read)
100daystooffload technology opinion

The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy 10 March 2021

I recently finished reading The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy. This genre of novel (sort of military thriller fiction) is not usual for me and this is the first Clancy book I have read. That being said, the book has been on my “to-read” list for a fair amount of time and so I am … Read more (2 minute read)
100daystooffload book opinion

Migrating from Google Photos: Nextcloud, Piwigo, Mega, and pCloud 24 February 2021

By now I’m sure everyone has heard the horror stories about people (seemingly-) randomly losing access to their Google accounts. Often the account closures are reported to have been accompanied with vague automated notifications from Google complaining that the account-holder violated their … Read more (8 minute read)
100daystooffload technology opinion

The Glamour of Cyberpunk and the Road to Solarpunk 20 February 2021

A few months ago I stumbled across this article: Beyond Cyberpunk: Towards a Solarpunk Future. It was posted on the excellent blog Tales from the Dork Web, by Steve Lord, which I can certainly recommend subscribing to. I had never heard of the term “Solarpunk” before, but I read up more … Read more (5 minute read)
100daystooffload opinion

A Year Without Answering my Phone 18 February 2021

This month marks a year from when I decided to (mostly - see below) stop answering my phone. This was not because I wanted to be antisocial (quite the opposite), but because it’s become the wrong form of communication for me. Why did I stop? Like many people, I am inundated with sales-y and … Read more (3 minute read)
100daystooffload life opinion

RSS: The Rise and Fall... and Rise Again 3 February 2021

Many people would consider RSS - Really Simple Syndication - to be a relic of the past. However I think it has been making a comeback. RSS is a mechanism by which people can automatically receive updates from individual websites, similar to how you might follow another user on a social networking … Read more (9 minute read)
100daystooffload technology opinion

Why not SQLite? 1 February 2021

If you need a database for your next project, why not first consider if SQLite might be a good option? And I don’t mean just for getting an MVP off the ground or for small personal systems; I mean for “real” production workloads. Many people will be quick to jump on this with … Read more (3 minute read)
100daystooffload technology opinion

Out with the Old: Moving to Gitea 30 January 2021

If you’ve visited my geminispace (gemini://wilw.capsule.town) you’ll have noticed that I’ve recently been on a mission to decentralise the every-day tools and services I use, and will understand the reasons why. This post will likely become part of a series of posts in which I talk … Read more (4 minute read)
selfhosted 100daystooffload selfhost gitea github analysis technology opinion

Scaling serverless apps: some lessons learned 3 January 2021

Building apps on serverless architecture has been a game-changer for me and for developers everywhere, enabling small dev teams to cheaply build and scale services from MVP through to enterprise deployment. Taking advantage of serverless solutions - such as AWS’ Lambda, Google’s Cloud … Read more (6 minute read)
100daystooffload serverless aws lambda analysis technology opinion